Paladin of the Sword: Chapter 3

Five Years Ago

Darren stood over the corpse of a greater fiend, twirling his silver sword in his hand. He took a moment to decide what he needed more, its corpse or its aura. Its skin had been as tough as stone, and it might make a good armored cloak or pair of boots. Besides that, he had eaten nothing since he’d killed that demonic turtle the day prior. The soup he’d made from that thing had been so foul he could hardly stomach it. He was hoping to find something better to eat in this region of hell.

Quest Completed: Hunt the hunter

• You’ve killed the chimera stalking you, overcoming the difference of a realm with strength, skill, and strategy.
  
• Reward: One uncommon skill book.
  

A tome appeared tucked in the chimera’s skin as though it had always been there. Darren didn’t know if his sigil placed it there moments before he earned the reward or if the chimera had been carrying this skillbook but this was how he always found quest rewards. They were simply there, as though his sigil had known that’s where they’d be.

Darren picked it up and read the title.

Evasive Step

Darren tucked the book under his arm. The fight had been worthwhile for this book. He needed some sort of movement ability to keep up with the growing speed of the demons he was encountering.

In the end, he settled for a compromise. He would flay the best piece of hide off the demon, save a few cuts for roasting over a fire, then run his blade through the rest to turn it into Divine Aura, which went into the sword and would ultimately restore Darren’s power. He was nearly ready for another use of his legendary skill, Limitless Evolution. Darren waved his hand, and his sigil produced a list of his skills, recorded and described as he knew them.

Darren Heavengrace (Paladin, Third Order)

Devotion: Extraordinarily Faithful

Advanced Divine Aura 10 (Uncommon)

• Note: Evolved from the skill Elementary Divine Aura
  
• This knowledge, originally from the essential skill book on Divine Aura that all Holy Adepts learn from, contains advanced knowledge on the manipulation, storage, and control of Divine Aura.
  
• Cost: Passive, no cost.
  

Hands of Purity 10 (Rare)

• Note: Evolved from the skill Pure Aura
  
• This ability removes the taint of Demonic Aura from anything that can be touched, creating an aura of purity around the user. Deals damage against entities that require Demonic Aura to live.
  
• Cost: Low Divine Aura.
  

Battle Instincts 8 (Epic)

• Note: Evolved from the skill Combat Awareness
  
• This ability lets the user predict enemy movements and attack patterns, regardless of species.
  
• Cost: Passive, no cost.
  

Demonslayer 10 (Rare)

• Note: Evolved from the skill Demonhunter
  
• This ability allows the user to enhance their attacks with large amounts of Divine Aura, dealing 5x damage to all demonic creatures.
  
• Cost: Medium Divine Aura.
  

Ray of Light 7 (Rare)

• This ability allows the user to shoot a beam of sunlight towards their target, damaging anything in the way.
  
• Cost: Low Divine Aura and one hour spent in pure sunlight, or a bottle of concentrated solar energy.
  

Limitless Evolution 1 (Legendary)

• When a skill or item has reached the pinnacle of its abilities, this skill can enhance the skill or item. It also reveals the requirements for advancing a skill or item to its next level.
  
• Cost: Three-day casting time, consumes all of the user’s Divine Aura.
  
• Note: Legendary Skills do not occupy a skill slot.
  

It had been harsh at first. He’d hidden in that cave for over a year as his mother’s body slowly wasted away. He’d spent months putting water in her mouth and bandaging her wounds, pretending to himself that she was merely meditating. It wasn’t until her corpse rotted that he finally left, collapsing the cave as he did so to seal her inside so the demon dogs wouldn’t defile her body.

He had never fully trusted his sigil after what it had said about him and his mother, but there were no other options for him but to follow its instructions. It mentioned nothing specific about him again, and Darren couldn’t even hazard to guess why it had wanted to kill him and his mother. Perhaps there was something wrong with the heavens. Maybe someday Darren would ask the Lord of Light. Even until now, Darren hadn’t dared use his ability as a paladin to contact the seraph for guidance.

He could certainly use some help, and he wanted answers more than anything, but he didn’t trust the seraph in the slightest. He would follow his mother’s last instructions and trust that heading west would lead him to where he needed to go.

Darren had put the skill his mother died for to good use. Limitless Evolution might have very well been the only reason he’d been able to survive these last five years. The first thing Darren used his skill on was the silver dagger. When he used Limitless Evolution on it, the small blade became the sword in his hand, which he’d since dubbed Melancholy. It had been his only companion since his mother’s death.

For a while, he evolved every skill he could level to 10, growing his power. But spending as much time in the upper layers of hell as he was, he leveled each of his abilities. If not for his evolution skill, his growth would have plateaued years ago as he mastered a few mediocre skills. But now, his abilities could grow indefinitely.

He was particularly thrilled to learn that legendary skills did not occupy a skill slot, meaning that even if he never progressed to whatever came after paladin, so long as he kept leveling his skills he’d eventually have as many as he wanted.

The higher he got his skills, the harder they would be to level, so he was still very careful picking the last skill to fill his six slots, but the movement-type skill he’d just picked up might very well have been just what he needed. It would be the last part of his toolkit until one of his other abilities hit legendary and he could choose something new, but that might take a few more years of training and completing quests.

For the past week, a chimera had been chasing him. He’d plucked some of its feathers while it slept since his skill told him that was one item he needed to prepare Melancholy for a second evolution. Those feathers were more valuable to it than he thought.

After realizing it would not give up the chase, he finally turned to confront the chimera, whose corpse he now sat upon.

Wasting no further time, Darren took out his butcher’s knife. It had been an ordinary rock before using Limitless Evolution on it to turn it into a useful tool. Using Melancholy for this task would turn the corpse into Divine Aura, which would render eating it impossible.

Darren stuffed the chimera's skin into the bag at his waist, which he still thought of as his mother’s, even though it had been with him for many years now.

With the chimera hunting him successfully ambushed and slain, Darren’s next priority was to find somewhere safe to hide and begin using his legendary skill again. Most of his abilities were ready to evolve, and Darren hoped they’d reach a new level of power. If nothing else, evolving Melancholy a second time would better equip him. But first, he had a new skill book to add to his repertoire of skills.

Evasive Step (Uncommon)

• This ability allows you to move with perfect efficiency, directing your body to maneuver at otherwise impossible angles to avoid blows and position you for your next attack.
  

Ever since Darren had descended from the First Layer of Hell to the Second, hiding places had become harder to find, and the demons had grown more powerful. This chimera had been a fourth-order demon, one order higher than Darren himself. But between Melancholy, the element of surprise, and his Demonslayer skill, he had defeated it.

Darren spent the rest of the day munching on the raw meat off one of the chimera’s legs. After tearing it free, he turned the rest of the monster into Divine Aura. His Hands of Purity skill were even better than cooking at making demon flesh edible, and Darren had long since given up taste for practicality. Fires attracted more attention than he could afford, and he’d need one to cook unless he came across a magma pool.

While he ate, he headed towards a nearby path up to the First Layer, which he had discovered several days before. Up there, he quickly found a cave to hide in. There was a small dent of demonic foxes already in residence, and they attacked Darren as soon as he showed his face.

But a few slashes with Melancholy quickly put an end to all of them, and Darren piled the corpses nearby so he would have something to turn into Divine Aura to replenish himself after he used his legendary skill.

With the feathers and a few other trinkets his skill told him his sword needed, Darren sealed the entrance to the cave and used his skill. Divine Aura flowed out of him in a great wave, rushing into the weapon he held in his lap. The nearby items vanished in a burst of light just as Melancholy glowed as well. The light of the items joined that of the sword, and both continued to glow brighter.

The three days required to cast the spell passed, and when they were done, Darren hefted his blade again. Melancholy was larger than ever, and he couldn't believe the hand-thick sword had once been a slender knife. There were embellishments along the hilt that likely came from the chimera feathers and the serpent eyes he’d used as part of his skill, and its cross guard was inlaid with bits of gold he’d found or received as rewards for demon slaying quests.

Melancholy, Sword of the Demonslayer (Epic)

• This blade was created with the sole purpose of slaying demons. It has been reforged twice over in the fires of hell itself. It can permanently slay demons by converting them into Divine Aura and feeding that energy to its wielder. All attacks against demons with this weapon have massively increased effectiveness.
  

Requirements to upgrade

• The blood of 1000 different demons at the third-order or higher.
  
• Horns of a demon lord
  
• A moment of righteous fury.
  

When Darren evolved an item, it increased in rarity. Previously, the item had been rare, now it was epic. From his experiments and studies, Darren knew item classifications included common, uncommon, rare, epic, mythic, and legendary.

Skills and items both became more difficult to upgrade the higher they climbed, and Darren was fearing getting Melancholy to the mythic class would be nearly impossible. But even if he couldn’t improve the sword again, it would be strong enough to fight anything that he intended to face. By combining the weapon with his Demonslayer skill, Darren could annihilate most demons in a single strike.

Darren skewered the fox corpses one at a time, noting how much more Divine Aura he received with each corpse. Once he was replenished, he left his cave to refill his reserves and find something to eat before he would return to upgrade the rest of his skills. Doing this would slow his journey down by a few months, but he could find no way further westward on either the first or second layers of Hell, which meant to get any further he’d need to go deeper.

***

Some time over the past five years, Darren had felt at home in hell. The demons of the second and first layers were no longer so scary to him, and he had quietly gone from hunted to hunter. The devil dogs he’d been so careful to avoid when he was ten now scattered at the sound of his approach, and the imps could try whatever tricks they wanted against him without success.

Darren prowled the first layer, chasing down several large badger-like demons and cutting them to pieces with Melancholy. His sword recharged his Divine Aura with each one he slew, and before long he had enough energy in his tank to settle down again for a few days and use Limitless Evolution again.

This cycle continued for weeks until Darren had upgraded each of his skills. He’d fallen into something of a routine during times like these, and the state of using Limitless Evolution was something like meditation to him. He remembered his mother meditated frequently, even before she was wounded, and needed to meditate to keep the poison in her at bay.

With the exception of Ray of Light, which he hadn’t been able to get to 10, Darren upgraded all of his existing skills, along with a few choice pieces of equipment, including his mother’s bag.

[Hands of Purity 10] (Rare) has become [Divine Blessing 1] (Epic)

• The user passively repels all Demonic Aura and influence. Upon activation of its active ability, the user’s aura purifies the area and instantly destroys all first-order demons in a three-meter radius around them.
  

[Demonslayer 10] (Rare) has become [Demonbane 1] (Epic)

• Damage against demons is now increased by a factor of 10x. You are more likely to receive quests that involve slaying demons, and demons will have an instinctual fear of provoking you.
  

[Chimera Skin Cape] (Uncommon) has become [Demonhide Cloak] (Rare)

• This cloak will repel average attacks from third-order demons and below. It also regulates the wearer’s temperature to maintain peak performance.
  
• It now provides stealth abilities that make the wearer harder to detect.
  

[Bottomless Flask] (Rare) has become [Lifewell] (Epic)

• Besides containing infinite water, Lifewell water has the effect of providing a slow healing effect and mitigating the effects of aging to increase the drinker’s lifespan.
  

[Superb Bag of Holding] (Epic) has become [Inventory] (Mythic)

• The inventory personal pocket space is accessible only to the user’s thoughts and does not have a physical anchor point in the real world. All times are stored exactly as they’re inserted, with no physical or chemical changes.
  

Darren stared at his new item, the Lifewell. If he’d possessed this back when his mother was still alive, she might have been able to overcome her poison. They’d still have been ambushed at that shrine, but Darren was certain they’d have stood a better chance.

But she was dead, and Darren had to accept that.

The Inventory was also interesting to play with. At first, Darren thought his legendary skill had failed and destroyed his mother’s bag, along with everything in it. After he’d calmed down, he sensed a presence in his mind that hadn’t been there before, like another brain without purpose that only existed to manage what he had inside the bag. He nudged it, thinking vaguely of his mother’s tiara, her sigil she’d worn as a mark of her power.

The instant the thought came to mind, the tiara appeared in his hand. After a few more experiments, Darren quickly figured out how to use the new item. After mastering it, packing up camp was easier than ever, and he scoured the chamber clean until it was just as he’d left it. He wanted to experiment with the claim that everything left inside would be just as he put it in, so he took a few fox corpses and some food and stashed them away for later examination.

With his upgrades finished, Darren was finally ready to pack his things and head down to the Third Layer.

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